The present invention relates to computer interfaces. In particular, the present invention relates to three-dimensional computer interfaces.
Currently, three-dimensional computer interfaces are being developed that allow a user to navigate through a three-dimensional space that contains icons and windows representing documents and applications. However, current systems do not combine existing three-dimensional rendering technology with two-dimensional window data in a way that allows the windows to be rendered easily in the three dimensional environment while retaining the ability to identify the location of a cursor relative to the displayed window.
In addition, although a three-dimensional space provides more room for displaying two-dimensional windows, it also applies a greater burden on the user to position the windows properly in the space. In particular, current operating systems (both three-dimensional based and two-dimensional based) fail to provide an optimum method for placing two or more windows in an area so that the windows have the same general shape and size and do not overlap each other. Currently, in order to place two or more windows in such an area, the user must change the shape and size of one or both of the windows to be viewed and manually move the windows into the desired area. These manual steps reduce the efficiency of using the computer system. Thus, a system is needed that allows windows to be positioned in a three-dimensional space but that also limits the positioning burden placed on the user.
In addition, because the user can move in such three-dimensional environments, they are often some distance from the application icons they want to access. Thus, the user is often forced to navigate through the environment to reach the documents and applications they want to use. This is a burden to the user, especially when the user has to navigate through the environment for applications and documents that they access frequently.
Current interfaces also fail to provide descriptive icons to represent windows that are currently running on the system but that may not be currently visible to the user. In some two-dimensional desktop interfaces of the prior art, a taskbar is provided that includes icons for each active window on the desktop. However, these icons do not provide much information about the status of the window's contents and in some cases two or more icons can look the same on the taskbar.